I just started as well. I’m not very familiar with the franchise, is there some background lore I ought to know of or can I jump right in? Any useful “wish I knew that sooner” gameplay hints?
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Every final fantasy is (mostly) a stand alone entry with it’s own setting, plot, and lore. That said, there are some very recurring themes and / or character types and FFXIV is full of references up and down.
It’s been so long since I started, I don’t remember a time before familiarity with the basics. The server tick rate is very slow. If youre ever trying to heal or survive something, give yourself ample time to do so because you may have your gcd eaten and still die.
Don’t be afraid to use Sprint. It’s a general action, and a minute is not a long cooldown. Don’t forget it when you see a big scary aoe marker appear.
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anyone here remember back when sprint used all your TP which you needed to do abilities as physical classes
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One of the great things about 14 is, it is a self contained story like almost all of the Final Fantasy games, not counting direct sequels like 10-2 or the 13 trilogy. And while there are references to the franchise overall, as well as things that have become franchise staples and mainstays like certain character and location names, to say nothing of a few surprising music tracks they bring back and update, you don’t need to be steeped in the history of the series to get into this one and enjoy it’s story. They never leave you feeling lost but, the nods and references that are there are a great love letter to long term fans.
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Allegedly I played in that time and just… Blocked it from my memory.
Possibly because I was still fuming how you couldnt do more than one or two aoes without running dry, or how if I wanted a defensive cooldown on marauder I needed to play GLD.
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Basically anything recurring from past games is nothing more than a [Leonardo Dicaprio pointing meme] kind of thing.
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Thank you! I’m not a dungeon/raid guy, since I tend to move incredibly slowly. I’m enjoying the pace right now (slow) and just trying to find my footing. I’m not sure the controls are working well for me yet, so that might be my next bit of research.
If anyone just wants to wave, I made a Roegadyn Gladiator (at least, I think that’s what I made) on Crystal /Mateus, Aisdaeg Falksyn.
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Neither am I, but just to give you a heads up as a Gladiator, like me as a Marauder…we’re tanks. So Dungeon queues pop pretty swiftly and so far my PUGs have resulted in some very chill folks if you just immediately let them know it’s your first time.
I’m five dungeons and a “raid” (More like a narrative boss battle) deep, and I’m comfortable with it. Everybody so far has been super chill and there’s even a notification for when party members are viewing in-game cinematics so nobody pulls ahead so don’t feel like you have to skip story for the sake of other people.
Tanking in FFXIV isn’t terrible and I’ve never let a mob run wild into the party. It’s going to be daunting at first but don’t fret over it (and the dungeons/raids are part of the Main Quest so they aren’t optional content).
Loot will come in its own pop up window with Need, Greed, and Pass options. The loot window lingers, so don’t feel bad if you leave everything to the end of the run to decide whether or not you want to bid on it or not.
Also don’t be scared because there’s an extensive in-game tutorial quest chain that will walk you through your class role in teaming. Incentivized by a lot of free gear for pretty simple stuff too, so they don’t just throw you into the deep end and demand you swim.
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Yeah. Tanking is basically 1) remember to turn on your threat gen at the start of a dungeon, 2) run into a group, 3) spam AoE. It gets a lot trickier later on when you’re doing 8-man content, but that’s a while yet. Also, like half of you stuff will be under the Role list when you press “P” to open your skillsets, not just Job list. Role list for tank is like all of your mitigation. Please use them.
Don’t feel bad if you wanna watch cutscenes. The dungeon/trial/whatever won’t start until everyone is done. There are some dungeons and stuff with cutscenes right before the final boss that people will rush and you might miss the start of the fight, but, eh, watch it anyway if you want. You can jump right to the boss when you’re done.
Nothing is required to know anything about FFXIV lore. It’s all in the MSQ. It also helps for SHB if you’ve played Nier: Automata, and there is a required set of quests in Ul’dah called “The Rise and Fall of Gentlemen.” That’s about it.
Anyway, with many players coming in, I would like to give a firm but gentle reminder to use spoiler tags if discussing the story! Most sprouts aren’t super far in yet, but lets vets keep them in mind when posting. ESPECIALLY if we’re going to be discussing stuff from FanFest. 
I’m Kyra Vast on Balmung. I don’t RP much these days but am happy to run people through content for your story
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Anyway, here’s a video of lead writer Natsuko Ishikawa being adorable. Timestamped and no real spoilers until they start the discussion but just in case.
Spoilers
https://youtu.be/Fd8f8veYg40?t=486
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Non-spoilery, but Yoshi P was once asked if they would consider doing Vanilla servers, going back to the original Final Fantasy 14 (which Yoshi P was not in charge of)
His response is beautiful
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I feel as a tank I need to clarify that FFXIV AoE doesn’t work the same as WoW AoE. It’s wholly dependent on YOUR position on what it hits, and like Marauders get a cone AoE so be mindful of where you set up when you start spamming AoE.
I didn’t really pay that much attention, but wasn’t the original launch of FFXIV so absolutely godawful that they pulled the game down, issued out refunds to people who’d purchased it, and basically rebuilt the whole thing from the ground up? (And incorporated that into the “new” FFXIV story as the background?)
Why in the world would you want to invest resources in a game that was so terrible the company itself took it behind the woodshed, put two in the back of its head, and then proceeded to harvest the body for its components?
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That’s the summary of it, yes. It was awful. No, not “endearing awful” like some of the things you remember from oldschool WoW, but downright terrible.
As an example: the team put so much emphasis on the looks of the game that gameplay suffered and was hollow as a result. And even when focusing on graphics, what they didn’t consider was that 80%+ of computers couldn’t even run the original version at maximum settings at the time. I had a fairly decent computer at the time and it would crash when doing the Limsa Lominsa opening because the water rendering was just so overdone, it took way too many resources.
I cannot overstate this: 1.X - in my opinion - was among the worst MMORPGs I had ever played at the time.
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Serph isn’t wrong, though
Like, the specifics of how AoE in each game works isn’t super relevant to the fact that you’re still spamming it. Every roulette I’ve ever run is tanks doing exactly what was prescribed.
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I don’t think it’s a spoiler since it’s the literal opening cutscene of ARR, but I always loved the poetry of 1.X ending with the destruction of the game and then being reborn from the ashes.
And yes, 1.X was so bad that the people in charge not only issued a formal apology and took responsibility for the state of the game at the time, but stepped down to allow more passionate devs like Yoshi-P take the reigns.
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Not only that, but players who played in 1.0 also have a special in-game tattoo they can use, and I believe they also pay a cheaper subscription rate. Square really knows how to make a proper apology to players when the product is bad.
Personally, I loved how they wrapped up 1.0. It takes serious balls to basically end a game with, “You lose, the world is on fire, see you in five years.” And they didn’t just set the world on fire, they set it on fire in the most spectacular way possible. Even when the heroes break out their big secret MacGuffin it gets blown away too.
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Yeah it’d be great if Blizzard would…
… yeah
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Something about 150 lines of shader code for a flowerpot will do that.
UI element resize was also server side, not client side, which created a HOST of problems.
No jumping, no auto-attack, lagging where it wasn’t crashing, but Althuan has the right of it. A good chunk of “god awfulness” were overly complex game mechanics that honestly didn’t need to be there.
Also, there was a built in fatigue score to “encourage players to take breaks and not play a lot”, since there wasn’t really anything endgame wise.
But yeah, they took the 1.0 version of FFXIV, burned it to the ground, and made its destruction canon, bringing in a new story, new lore, and the best damn feels I’ve had this side of a video game.
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It feels worth noting that setting 1.X on fire wasn’t just a scorched earth process.
They developed a completely second MMO while simultaneously producing updates and content patches for the people still playing the trash heap, right up until it went down in flames.
The sort of astronomical risk that even the big wig executive types signed off on not only indicates how atrocious the launch was but just what they were willing to do to save face.
This is the first in a series of a short documentary type outlining the absolutely wild ride that 1.0’s rise, fall, and rebirth was.
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they had GMs coming in as NPCs to act as flavor for the coming of the seventh umbral era
urianger popped up a handful of times as a traveling prophet iirc
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